Re: Linux distros for servers that matter

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 03:06:21PM +0100, Philipp Kern wrote:
> On 7 Jan 2005, at 14:33, Andy Smith wrote:
> >Out of interest, what Linux distributions do people stand by these
> >days for servers that matter?
> 
> Debian sarge as soon it's released. Testing is currently performing
> well without major breakages as it's near the freeze (however
> nobody knows when "it's done"). At least you don't get many changes
> when sarge is frozen apart from security updates so the box runs,
> sane administration is possible, but the package system wouldn't
> break anything on the way. (Gentoo is a hell compared to this --
> let a server stand anywhere for months without being touched and
> you've got a nightmare when you upgrade the packages because of
> security problems and new package versions.)

The problem I have with debian purely from an observer's point of
view is that it moves so slowly.  You're saying now to wait for
sarge to become stable and then use that, but the current stable has
remained unchanged for how many years in debian?  Doesn't it still
come with kernel 2.2.x for example?

So if I were to wait for sarge to go into stable then yes I would
have access to a reasonably up to date Linux distro and packages
*now*, but it isn't going to change for 2+ years is it?

Using stable right now, I would get say mysql 3.x.  People
developing stuff for MySQL right now should really be using MySQL
4.1 which is a major version and one minor version ahead.  That's a
massive set of dependencies which touches perl, python, php, every
other language binding, lots of shared libraries..  So I could
backport MySQL but then I'd end up installing loads of backports.
Or I could get it from unstable and end up installing lots of
unstable.

So then I think "OK this is just silly, I have to use unstable".
Which is fine but then if I had any kind of problem whatsoever then
the debianites all raise their hands, make a sucking noise through
their teeth and go "well, that's unstable for you..."

Is this perception wrong?

_______________________________________________
public mailing list
public-Hb7ITwsGSD4lroQnaJEqWdi2O/[email protected]
http://lists.blitzed.org/listinfo/public

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (FreeBSD)

iD8DBQFCAipZIJm2TL8VSQsRAv+9AJ9/mnWVnVWdonwLE/XnTt2J00ObDwCgmUZA
WZ/Nn3s0Rlsw9w8h+d+dtR8=
=BIRU
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----